MAY I comment on your front page headline on March 29 and the subtended article concerning the tragic death of young Daniel Cunliffe.

Your use of a headline in the form of a statement, although in quotation marks, but not otherwise qualified as an opinion, strongly implies fault, in direct contradiction of the coroner's verdict of accidental death. In doing this, you fuel the increasingly litigious attitudes of present day society. Why must there always be blame attached to any undesirable outcome? Can we not accept that "no blame" accidents can and do occur?

We all know that the NHS is in dire need of money and every claim against it, justified or not, successful or not, takes money out of the NHS and into the pockets of lawyers -- what good does it do there? I would add that allowing solicitors to advertise in clinics and surgeries only exacerbates the situation.

Your article indicates that several doctors were involved in Daniel's assessment and treatment, but not all were hospital doctors -- I suppose it is easier to target the hospital as an institution rather than individuals.

In conclusion, although I hesitate to make this point in light of the grief of Daniel's parents, I must ask -- why did the parents take the child away from Accident and Emergency after waiting for only "about an hour"?

Had they waited for Daniel to be seen by a doctor, one would expect that, in the knowledge that he had swallowed something the day before, he would have had an X-ray and this would have been seen and assessed by a doctor, before any decision to discharge or give further treatment was made.

What might the outcome have been then?

Name and address supplied.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.